This is one of a long-term series of posts about Ariadne’s Tribe inclusive Minoan spirituality. Some of these posts, including this one, are revised and updated versions of older articles that I wrote over the course of a decade on the now-defunct Minoan Path blog at Witches & Pagans. All my new Minoan spirituality blog posts can be found here.

Like many other ancient cultures, the Minoans were accomplished astronomers. Their artifacts and their architecture reflect their fascination with the tiny twinkling lights that moved through the night sky as well as the brightest sky-light of all, the Sun.

As so many other societies around the world have done, they incorporated this astronomical knowledge into their spiritual practice and even into their sacred buildings.

Did you know that the Knossos Throne Room has alignments to sunrise on the solstices and equinoxes? I can only image how profound those dawn rituals must have been in that room!

For loads more information about Minoan astronomy, particularly regarding the way Minoan temples, tombs, peak sanctuaries and other buildings were aligned to the movements of the planets and stars, have a look at the Uppsala Archaeoastronomy Project website. This is a project run by Mary Blomberg, Göran Henriksson, and Peter Blomberg of Uppsala University. The website is now archived by the Wayback Machine since the researchers have retired. If you’re interested in this material, I strongly recommend downloading it, including all their research papers that they generously included on the Project Publications page.

The Minoans used astronomy to calculate several different types of sacred calendars. They may have used the Cycladic “frying pans” like the one up top for this purpose (they’re funerary objects, not cooking vessels; early archaeologists called them frying pans due to their shape, and the name unfortunately stuck).

They may also have been able to predict eclipses. For instance, this stone mold (half of a pair that would have been used to cast solid metal objects) includes a compass-like shape in the center that researchers have calculated could have been used to predict the eclipse cycle:

And no, that’s not a Minoan precursor to the Antikythera device. This mold would have made solid objects with no moving parts. But as the researchers note, that central piece would have been a medallion shaped in such a way that it could have been an early scientific instrument.

Speaking of early scientific instruments… this photo below probably isn’t what you’d expect an eclipse calculator to look like. But apparently it could really have been used that way.

So far, I’ve offered you some nuts-and-bolts examples of the way the Minoans used astronomy: building alignments, calendar calculations, artifacts.

But what about how the Minoans viewed the Sun and Moon, planets and stars in terms of their mythos, their sacred stories?

We can’t say for certain what the ancient Minoan star map looked like. But in Ariadne’s Tribe, we’ve pieced together some mythos that works for us and that feels right for us as modern Pagans practicing an inclusive Minoan spiritual path.

Our mythos is intricately interwoven with our sacred calendar. This connects the stories of the deities with the movement of celestial objects. When we look up in the night sky, we see those stories spread out in sparkling array above us. First of all, we see Ourania, the Great Cosmic Mother-of-All who is the sky and all the stars in it, and much, much more. But among those clusters of stars there are stories…

Our mythos is organized into micropantheons, with each small group of deities having their own story cycles that are reflected in the stars. Micropantheons have been around in the Mediterranean since at least the Bronze Age, possibly earlier, so it’s likely the Minoans had multiple ways of viewing the constellations depending on which deities their personal spiritual practice revolved around.

I’ll describe our Minoan star map in terms of the standard modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union.

Ariadne’s Mythic Cycle (The Mysteries): The constellation Orion is Ariadne‘s Labrys, with the star Sirius as the Jewel on the end of the Labrys’s handle. The Labrys rises in the autumn around the time the rainy season gets underway, roughly at Autumn Equinox, when Ariadne rises from the Underworld with the first green sprouts in the fields. It disappears around harvest time, roughly at Spring Equinox, when Ariadne “dies” with the grain crop and returns to the Underworld.

The Mysteries begin with the heliacal rising of the star Arcturus, in the constellation of Boötes, and end with the heliacal rising of the star Spica, in the constellation of Virgo. The constellation Ophiucus, surrounded by Serpens, is the image of Ariadne as the Snake Goddess, holding the snakes that protect the grain stores from rodents. Corona Borealis is Ariadne’s necklace, necklaces being significant aspects of goddess iconography around the Mediterranean and Old Europe, going well back into the Neolithic era.

The Horned Ones (cattle): The constellation Taurus is our starry bull-god Tauros Asterion; the Pleiades are the cows in his sacred herd. Orion is the Cattle-Master, the one who guards and tends the herd. And that’s not his sword <wink>. The constellation Gemini is the Bull-Leapers: Our deities Thaena and Sydaili are the stars Alpha and Beta Geminorum; Eshuumna (the Unseen Rainbow) is found in the dark space between them. As we say in Ariadne’s Tribe, between wisdom and joy lies the rainbow. This triplicity of deities guards the northern gate to the Underworld, the place where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic between Gemini and Taurus.

The Serpent Mother: Ophiuchus plus Serpens is the Snake Goddess holding her snake(s) up in her hands, a favorite representation of the Serpent Mother.

The Sailors: Sailing and ships were a major aspect of the Minoan culture. The people who went to sea every year would have had their own calendar, specific to the annual rhythm of their activities. They probably also had their own set of meanings for the stars, distinct from those of the farmers and the people who raised cattle. The heliacal rising and setting of the Pleiades mark the opening of the sailing season (The Blessing of the Ships) and the closing (Harbor Home). In the Bronze Age, these events would have happened in early May and early October, respectively. The asterism that is now called the Pleiades is the Bee Swarm; bee swarming season is at its height at the Blessing of the Ships in mid-May. The constellation Pegasus is The Sail – it’s the square shape that sails were made in during the Bronze Age.

The Sun-Mother: The constellation Scorpio is Therasia’s griffin, guarding the southern gate to the Underworld, where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic between Scorpio and Sagittarius.

The next time you look up into the night sky, see how many of the Minoan deities and their stories you can find!

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